The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel eBook

The enchantment, whatever it was, was broken.
Although he missed the slipper from among the trifles
scattered over his table, its absence brought him
a kind of relief. He less frequently caught himself
falling into brown studies. The details of his
adventure daily grew more indistinct; the picture
was becoming a mere outline; it was fading away.
He might have been able in the course of time to set
the whole occurrence down as a grotesque dream, if
he had not now and then beheld Deacon Twombly driving
by the bank with Mary attached to the battered family
carry-all. Mary was a fact not easily disposed
of.

Insensibly Lynde lapsed into his old habits.
The latter part of this winter at Rivermouth was unusually
gay; the series of evening parties and lectures and
private theatricals extended into the spring, whose
advent was signalized by the marriage of Miss Bowlsby
and Preston. In June Lynde ran on to New York
for a week, where he had a clandestine dinner with
his uncle at Delmonico’s, and bade good-by to
Flemming, who was on the eve of starting on a protracted
tour through the East. “I shall make it
a point to visit the land of the Sabaeans,” said
Flemming, with his great cheery laugh, “and
discover, if possible, the unknown site of the ancient
capital of Sheba.” Lynde had confided the
story to his friend one night, coming home from the
theatre.

Once more at Rivermouth, Edward Lynde took up the
golden threads of his easy existence. But this
life of ideal tranquillity and contentment was not
to be permitted him. One morning in the latter
part of August he received a letter advising him that
his uncle had had an alarming stroke of apoplexy.
The letter was followed within the hour by a telegram
announcing the death of David Lynde.

VI

BEYOND THE SEA

In the early twilight of a July evening in the year
1875, two young Americans, neither dreaming of the
other’s presence, came face to face on the steps
of a hotel on the Quai du Montblanc at Geneva.
The two men, one of whom was so bronzed by Eastern
suns that his friend looked pallid beside him, exchanged
a long, incredulous stare; then their hands met, and
the elder cried out, “Of all men in the world!”

“Flemming!” exclaimed the other eagerly;
“I thought you were in Egypt.”

“So I was, a month ago. What are you doing
over here, Ned?”

“I don’t know, to tell the truth.”

“You don’t know!” laughed Flemming.
“Enjoying yourself, I suppose.”

“The supposition is a little rash,” said
Edward Lynde. “I have been over nearly
a year—­quite a year, in fact. After
uncle David’s death”—­

“Poor old fellow! I got the news at Smyrna.”

“After he was gone, and the business of the
estate was settled, I turned restless at Rivermouth.
It was cursedly lonesome. I hung on there awhile,
and then I came abroad.”